During The Night, The Noise Of Warlike Instruments, And The Shouts Of
The Troops Collected In Ormuz Were Heard From
All parts of the city; and
when morning came, the whole walls, the shore, and the vessels in the
harbour
Were seen crowded with armed men, while the windows and flat
tops of all the houses were filled with people of both sexes and all
ages, anxious to behold the expected events. Albuquerque immediately
began to cannonade the city and the large Moorish ships, and was
spiritedly answered by the enemy, who took advantage of the obscurity
occasioned by the smoke to send a large party of armed men in 130 boats
to attack the ships, and did some damage among the Portuguese by
incessant and prodigious discharges of arrows and stones. But as many of
the boats were sunk by the Portuguese artillery, and numbers of the men
slain and drowned, they were forced to retire. They returned again to
the charge with fresh numbers; but after a severe conflict were again
obliged to retreat with prodigious loss, the sea being dyed with blood,
and great numbers of them slain. By this time, Albuquerque had sunk two
of the largest ships in the port and taken a third, not without
considerable opposition on the part of the enemy, forcing the surviving
Moors to leap into the sea; and the other captains of his squadron had
captured three ships, and had set above thirty more on fire. The crews
of these cut their cables and drifted over to the Persian shore to
enable themselves to escape; but by this means communicated the
conflagration to other vessels that were lying aground. These disasters
struck such terror into the people of Ormuz that they all fled in dismay
within their walls, and Khojah Attar sent a message to Albuquerque
offering to submit to his proposals; on which he put a stop to farther
hostilities, yet suspecting the governor of treachery, he threatened to
inflict still heavier calamities on the city unless the terms were
performed with good faith. Thus, with the loss only of ten men on the
side of the Portuguese, most of the numerous vessels belonging to the
enemy, full of various rich commodities, were taken, burnt, sunk, or
torn to pieces, and above seventeen hundred of the Moors were slain,
numbers of whose bodies were seen floating in the harbour. Many of these
were seen to have ornaments of gold, which the Portuguese anxiously
sought after, and on this occasion it was noticed that several of the
enemy had been slain by their own arrows, none being used by the
Portuguese.
Khojah Attar, dismayed by the prodigious injury sustained in the
conflict, and afraid of still heavier calamities, called a council of
the chief officers of the kingdom to deliberate on what was best to be
done, when it was agreed to submit for the present to the demands of
Albuquerque; after which articles of pacification were drawn up and
sworn to between the parties.
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